Amendment would lower school levy threshold

Goal is to cut 60% yes requirement

Published 10:00 pm, Monday, October 22, 2007

OLYMPIA -- Voters will decide in November if they want to amend the state constitution to make it easier for local school districts to raise money for programs through property taxes.

How much easier?

If the voters approve the amendment, schools will be able to pass new property tax levies the same way Tim Eyman passes initiatives, the same way politicians win public office and the same way voters overturn new legislation -- with a simple majority vote.

As it stands, the bar is set higher for school levies because it takes support from 60 percent of voters for taxes to pass.

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The bar for school levies was set higher in an attempt to keep a slight downward pressure on property tax increases. But education advocates say the 60 percent majority requirement is unfair and hurts children.

"Our schools need the help," said Washington Education Association President Mary Lindquist. "You can build a park, you can build a jail, you can build a sports stadium with 50 percent plus one vote, and yet for our school levies it takes 60 percent."

Lindquist said the state has consistently underfunded basic education, and local levies are the way communities can augment what the state provides.

"Given where we are right now with state funding, our local levies are absolutely essential to the operating of our schools," Lindquist said.

According to the Washington Education Association, 31 school levies that received majority votes of the people failed last year because they didn't get the required 60 percent. In most cases, the schools are able to rework levies and get a passing vote. Only four districts ultimately failed to pass levies, while 275 districts succeeded, according to statistics from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. But education advocates say fallout from the effort it takes to resubmit a levy to voters is disruptive.

"That means in the ensuing weeks and months after that failure, the attention and the energy in the school district goes to passing the levy the next time instead of allowing schools to really focus on their primary function, educating students," she said.

Lindquist said that in the period between a failed levy and going back to the polls, districts must make contingency plans, and the staff begins to worry about job security.

"It has a very negative impact on the culture of the district as well as diverting resources from what we should be doing," Lindquist said.

The issue itself has been hotly debated for decades -- and it wasn't until Democrats won big majorities in the state House and Senate last November that they were able to build enough support this year to pass the proposed amendment and put the issue before voters.

Now that it's on the ballot, it faces no formal opposition. But there are questions from the sideline.

Opponents include state Sen. Janea Holmquist, R-Moses Lake; state Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama; and Farm Bureau President Steve Appel. They say the argument in favor of lowering the bar for school district levies is misleading and leads to an unfair disparity for poorer districts.

In their statement against the measure, they argue that the success rate of more than 98 percent since 2000 shows that the supermajority requirement is not much of an obstacle.

"What's not fair to kids and their parents is an excessive property-tax bill. Our constitution ensures affordable and accountable levies. If these constitutional protections are removed, your property taxes will increase faster," they said. "It's the state's constitutional responsibility to provide for our schools' basic needs -- not shift the responsibility to local taxpayers."

The opponents of the measure say the state should invest more in schools instead of shifting the funding obligations to local school districts.

But in a state in which the demand for more money for schools is a constant, supporters say eliminating the supermajority requirement is essential.

"It has been 30 years in coming, where we have been fighting to make sure that we could change the really unfair supermajority requirement for levies for our kids in schools," Gov. Chris Gregoire said recently when she and six former governors endorsed the amendment.

"This measure will allow the majority of our voters to say yes or to say no to funding local levies and making decisions for kids in our communities."

Former Gov. John Spellman, a Republican, joined Gregoire in endorsing the amendment.

"As long as I've been a voter, we've had our priorities mixed up. For some reason, education has been taking a back seat," Spellman said. "It is very shortsighted to make schools jump over a higher hurdle than anybody in getting the money to do the job that's necessary."

The state is currently being sued by the Washington Education Association and by several school districts because, they say, Washington is not living up to its constitutional requirement to fully fund basic education.